


March 2017

by ArtisticVicu



Series: Monthly Prompt Writings [6]
Category: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Comfort, Deception, Gen, Original Character(s), Slave Trade, multiple stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23418763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticVicu/pseuds/ArtisticVicu
Summary: Each chapter is a different story.Chapter 1:She went into a laughing fit as if that was the most hilarious thing ever. Discord couldn't find the humor. He stood up, looking around. Oh, if only she hadn't bound his magic this would be so much easier."Can't unbind the magic," she chimed, almost singing the words. He focused back on her. Had she just read his thoughts or was he speaking out loud? "And the words are in your head, silly," she playfully chided, waving at him. He blinked at her before suddenly becoming very tempted at using the situation to his advantage. Well, till a thought came to mind.Chapter 2:He frowned. "You dreamt you had fallen?"She shook her head, her gaze coming back up. She didn't look at him, though. "I dreamt that I was swimming."Chapter 3:"Your beast is attempting to cheat me out of money." His words only caused the noise from the crowd to get worse.Adhara couldn't see but it seemed as if Michael was smirking if his words belayed anything properly. "I trust Adhara's judgment. He alone is worth 200 mil to me alone, and that price doesn't include his twin."
Series: Monthly Prompt Writings [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684405





	1. Shaving monkeys is my favorite pastime

"Shaving monkeys is my favorite pastime."  
  
He choked on the water, staring at her wide-eyed. "And I thought I was crazy," he commented, passing back the canteen. "How in the world is shaving monkeys your favorite pastime."  
  
She grinned at him, taking the canteen but not drinking quite yet. "Ok, ok, so partial lie. Making other people shave monkeys is my favorite pastime."  
  
He smirked. "Aw, see? That makes more sense."  
  
She giggled and his smirk fell. It sounded slightly unhinged but, then, so had her random comment. His concern expression turned into a deep frown. "Rachel, who am I?"  
  
"Discord, God of Chaos," she rattled easily, all the while grinning at him. He noted that she seemed to be looking through him to whatever was behind him.  
  
He tried another angle. "Rachel, what am I?"  
  
"A traveler from another world," she rattled just as easily, but that hadn't been the answer he had hoped for. She knew what he was down to the molecule. He only appeared human because of her doing and she was actively in his head because of it. "And my best friend."  
  
He blinked at her, thrown off by that. "B...Best friend?" he asked, his mind unwittingly pulling up memories of another that had called him that, one that was soft spoken and sweet, always putting up with him even as the disaster that he was normally.  
  
He shook his head. He'd come back to that later. "Rachel." She looked up at his face, blinking. Concern constricted his chest. Her eyes were slightly glazed. "What do we desire?"  
  
This...was an unfair question, one that would - in normal circumstances - get him smacked or at least get her to comment on how "their desire" was not a singular desire but several desires that some were shared and some that were not. But, seeing as his hunch was correct in that something was wrong, Rachel merely blinked again before stating with a giggle, "To see all the people shave monkeys."  
  
She went into a laughing fit as if that was the most hilarious thing ever. Discord couldn't find the humor. He stood up, looking around. Oh, if only she hadn't bound his magic this would be so much easier.  
  
"Can't unbind the magic," she chimed, almost singing the words. He focused back on her. Had she just read his thoughts or was he speaking out loud? "And the words are in your head, silly," she playfully chided, waving at him. He blinked at her before suddenly becoming very tempted at using the situation to his advantage. Well, till a thought came to mind.  
  
"Are you drunk?" he blurted out.  
  
She blinked at him before giggling. "You have to consume alcohol to get drunk, silly," she said, the edge of her words now becoming slightly slurred. "You're funny."  
  
He reached over and touched her forehead. Even with it being such a poor way of finding out if she had a fever or not, Discord nearly recoiled at the heat. He scooped her up as he grumbled, "We have to find you some place to rest. You're not well."  
  
She was a giggly ball of squirming body, acting almost like a five year old they had seen in the previous town from a week ago. "But I don't want to stop. We need to keep moving." Her giggles didn't subside. His grip on her tightened marginally as he picked a random direction.  
  
"Any place we can whole up for the night, then?" he asked, trying to get her to help.  
  
She let out another string of giggles and pointed - thankfully - in the direction they were going. "They're baking cookies."  
  
While that didn't tell him squat about how far they had to go, it gave him a direction to move in.  
  
The minutes turned into hours and when she suddenly stopped talking, the onslaught of panic in his veins froze his steps to the ground. He looked down at her, shifting her enough to press the back of his hand to her forehead again. He couldn't gauge if there was a difference or not. "Rachel?" he asked, concern nearly breaking his voice on her name.  
  
"I'm tired," she muttered.  
  
"Rachel, I need you to tell me how far out we are from the cookies."  
  
She frowned, though it was only slight in her exhaustion. "Cookies?"  
  
"Yes," he urged. "You mentioned someone was baking cookies."  
  
Her eyes slid close for longer than he was comfortable with but, just as he was about to call her name, they opened again and her arm was moving to point where he had been walking. "They made cookies," she spoke, the words lulling together.  
  
"How far?" he pleaded as her arm dropped limp.  
  
Her expression twisted into the tired equivalent of extreme concentration. "Not very."  
  
He rolled his eyes, anger briefly coming forward in the situation he had no skills of handling. "Not very," he grumbled, starting to walk. "That is not a dist-"  
  
He stepped around a tree and his words died on his lips. There, across what could count as a decent lawn, sat a cottage. Or, at least, the closest thing to a cottage this world had. He would have wept for joy if he hadn't suddenly registered how limp Rachel was in his arms. "Ray, you have to stay awake for me."  
  
No response.  
  
His throat attempted to close and he crossed the lawn as quickly as he could, trying again. "Ray, come on. Stay awake."  
  
No response.  
  
He maneuvered her into one arm before pounding hard on the door, fear driving his hand. He didn't know what to do, where he was, and felt utterly useless because of it and that was not a feeling he quite enjoyed, thank you very much. When the door wasn't immediately answered, he pounded again.  
  
The door opened, revealing a rather burly man with a plump woman standing behind him. They were both armed and ready for a fight but neither moved to attack first. "Can I help you?" the man asked in his gruff voice.  
  
"My friend is sick and I don't know what's wrong or what to do," Discord croaked. "Please, you have to help me." He swallowed past the lump in his throat. "I can't lose her now."  
  
The couple shared a look but it was the woman that nodded. The man lowered his weapon as the woman went farther into the home. He stepped back, opening the door wide. "Alright, come in. But you do anything to harm either myself or my wife, and I'll throw you both out after making sure you're not coming back."  
  
Discord nodded, stepping into the home. That sounded reasonable. After all, he was an unknown stranger to them. For all they knew, he could just be using this as a cover to get close.  
  
He shuddered, disgusted by the thought.


	2. The water was deep, but I couldn't drown.

"Have you ever had one of those dreams where you wake before you hit the ground?"  
  
He looked over at her but didn't comment. Her arms were crossed and resting on the railing, shoulders high but her gaze was situated towards the horizon rather than down at her arms like he had expected. Her entire stance screamed exhaustion but her expression, the fact that her gaze was still straight ahead, spoke of something stronger than the exhaustion itself.  
  
"I've never had one but I've heard people talking about it; how they wake with with a jolt still feeling like they're falling." Her gaze dipped downward slightly. "I never really understood what they meant till last night."  
  
He frowned. "You dreamt you had fallen?"  
  
She shook her head, her gaze coming back up. She didn't look at him, though. "I dreamt that I was swimming. I was swimming with no sign of land in sight and I was exhausted. But I couldn't stop. For whatever reason, I just couldn't stop. But then something wrapped itself around my ankle and dragged me under. The water was deep, but I couldn't drown. No matter how far down it went, I found that I didn't drown even when I sucked in water as if it were air. It had been like I had air trapped around me and I had sucked that in instead of the water but the tension - the initial panic was still there and I couldn't get free even though it seemed I could breathe." Her words stalled and he saw it in her expression. She blinked rapidly a few times before offering, "I woke up sucking in a large breath, exhausted and slowly coming to. I know it's no where near what people experience when they wake before hitting the ground but I couldn't help wondering if it was close enough."  
  
He looked forward, watching as the sun set behind the mountain range. The mountains were taller than any he had ever seen, even back on Earth, so it was still rather early as night began to fall. It probably didn't help with how close they were to the pointed peaks to begin with. "I dream I'm burning," he comments, letting the words tumble forward without a thought. If he thought about it, acknowledged it, he would shut up and shut down. "Sometimes I'm burning, sometimes I'm burning something. Or someone. It varies but, for the longest time, I was the one burning. It was before we knew of any of this." He made a broad, encompassing gesture, but he knew she understood that it was not directed to the world they were now in alone. "When we got more information, when we started learning and accepting these new parts of ourselves, I started dreaming of burning down places. Sometimes it would vary between home and some random location I've never seen or barely knew. More times than not, I was only creating damage and the dreams were rather tame, considering what I had been dreaming. They were stressful, don't get me wrong, but I would classify them as simple dreams where the ones where I'm burning alive were nightmares."  
  
His mouth was suddenly dry and he took a moment to wet his lips. "Well, that was until I started dreaming I was burning others."  
  
His gaze fell beyond the railing to the ground far below, huddling into himself in a sort of comfort. He wasn't sure if she was looking at him or not but he didn't want to know. He didn't want to see her expression. "At first, they were minor burns, accidents to strangers I didn't know once I woke up. But they slowly progressed into dreams where those closest to me were burning and I couldn't do a thing to help them. No amount of trying to do anything with the fire ever stopped them from burning. It's gotten to the point now where I'm surprised I don't wake up with third degree burns on my hands and arms after having spent the entire dream trying to pull someone out of the flames."  
  
"You probably would have if your brother hadn't come back."  
  
His gaze snapped to her out of surprise. While he had known she had been there, he had not expected her to speak, let alone say that. "What?" he asked weakly.  
  
She looked at him. "I take it he hasn't told you?"  
  
"Told me what?" he ground out, but it sounded breathless to his ears. He gripped the railing, not sure his legs were still under him. He couldn't feel them.  
  
"He's been in tune with fire just as long as you have. He's only now being able to actually do anything with it."  
  
"But he can't learn fire," he choked out, now seriously using the railing as support. "His first element won't allow him to."  
  
"It would seem that his first element had been fire, like yours," she offered with a shrug. "He just happened to have taken to earth before actually doing anything with fire."  
  
He looked to her, not understanding. "But why?"  
  
She shrugged, looking back to the horizon. He was thrown off. Even as her words had inflections, her entire demeanor seemed nonchalant, as if this was just simple information exchange rather than an in depth, emotional conversation gone wrong. "It could be that he saw that each of us were starting with just one and went with the one element not in use. He's intelligent like that. That and he probably figured no one would have liked to have seen him controlling two elements where everyone else was starting out with one." She looked at him again, her gaze curious even as her expression was blank. "Did you know that your grandmother reigned from earth and your grandfather from fire? Your mother took after her father but still managed to pass on the earth element to you both. It would seem your brother took to it more than you had."  
  
He shook his head. "I'm sure my brother knew. He's a genius like that."


	3. The desert was wet and wild.

He growled, arm out and pressing her back between him and the others as he gave into his default form. His wings spread wide to block them from view and he felt his twin's feathers brush against his. She was mimicking him, creating the other half of a makeshift shield. He didn't relax when Michael stepped forward, barking, "They belong to me."  
  
The noise lessened as those around them turned to whisper about such news. The man before them, the king of this desert kingdom, glared down his nose at Michael. "And how, praytell, did one of your status purchase such a lucrative find?" The man's gaze moved to him and he was glad that his twin was not facing the man. The hunger would have been lustful has she been the one facing forward and that thought made his growl grow louder. "Twins with shared forms, identical in all but gender." The man turned his eyes to Michael. "Do they have an aviary form or are the wings an addition?"  
  
He noted Michael bristling but it was minute and he covered it with a shift of his weight. "As if I would tell you the details of what is mine, especially given I have no interest in selling."  
  
The man laughed and he felt the female he had pushed back shudder against his back. "Not selling? Boy, I could offer you a sum you would never dream of turning down."  
  
Michael crossed his arms. "Try me."  
  
The snide smirk was carried in those two words and the noise from the crowd turned into a roar. The man stood up and ordered, "Silence!"  
  
It was heeded instantly.  
  
The man glared down at Michael. "200 mil."  
  
He choked on nothing, wide eyes falling onto Michael, the young man that held more than just two shifter fates in his hands. But the young man in question merely rolled his head to look back at him and asked, "Adhara, do you think that is a reasonable price?"  
  
He frowned, not understanding, but he did the math real quick and took in what he knew for the pricing of the lands and shook his head. "No, sir," he responded, remembering to show as if Michael was the one in charge. Too risky not to behave as expected. "That is under a third of the minimum you could get at the Black Market."  
  
The crowd was suddenly in an uproar but there was too much noise to make out if it was out of outrage towards himself or towards the king.  
  
It wasn't a lie and the king knew it because he paled before turning red, countering sharply, "Your beast is attempting to cheat me out of money." His words only caused the noise from the crowd to get worse.  
  
Adhara couldn't see but it seemed as if Michael was smirking if his words belayed anything properly. "I trust Adhara's judgment. He alone is worth 200 mil to me alone, and that price doesn't include his twin."  
  
Somehow the crowd managed to only get louder. The noise continued on even as the man called for order and silence but it was Michael raising a hand that silenced the crowd. Suddenly, Adhara understood. Michael had placed himself over the King of the land with a show of having the most expensive possessions in the land. If Adhara and his twin were worth more than 200 mil alone, what did that place the others at. It was clear that they were well taken care of, even if it would be an assumption of the people. And if the two shifters were worth more than 200 mil, who was to say the humans of the group were worth any less. Having that expensive of shifters portrayed a part of Michael's personality that people would presume on; he liked expensive things. But not just expensive things. These things had to be of use to him and be of good value otherwise they were worthless in every sense of the word. This meant that, for whatever reason, the humans of the group were something to keep an eye on.  
  
"If we are done with this foolishness," Michael spoke, his voice low but carrying easily to the still standing king, "I would like a suite for me and mine in the castle for the night. We will move on come morning but, for now, I would like to rest."  
  
"O-of course," the man stuttered. "I will have one prepared right away."  
  
Michael did a sort of half bow before turning and walking towards Adhara. Winging it (with pun intended), he curled his wings forward, blocking Michael from view. There was a bit of noise as Adhara released his default form and returned to his human one, keeping the wings present to hide Michael from view. The younger man looked shaken and drained but his eyes were sharp as he looked up at Adhara. "Can I trust you and your sister to keep an eye on everyone? I can only do so much."  
  
Adhara nodded. "I'm sorry you have to take the lead here."  
  
Michael gathered his composure and shook his head. Adhara folded his wings behind his back. "No. This is for the better." Adhara's twin walked over but she had remained in her default form. Her position conveniently blocked Michael's lips from being read by the crowd. "This...show will allow us to overthrow this moron of a king. If nothing else, it will gain us support."  
  
Adhara looked to his twin to see her frowning and her fingers flicked about in a brief sentence. Adhara signed back as he spoke to Michael, "Will it get us the support of the humans and shifters, though?"  
  
Michael shrugged. "Probably not this show, but once we leave the castle, we'll be able to have a larger influence on the lower populous." He gave a tired smile as the rest of the groups circled close, blocking him from view of the crowd. "The desert was wet and wild. Now it is barren and dry. This supposed king is doing nothing more than damaging the ecosystem because he believes in his caste system and this need for isolation. We will be targets because of where I have placed us but it will be the lords we will need on our side."  
  
"Will we get that chance?" Adhara asked as he watched his twin move to the other side, placing herself between the group and the crowd glaring at any that dared get close. A large space appeared around the huddled group and Adhara let a small smile grace his face. He loved his sister. She was the best.  
  
"Most likely within the next week." Michael sighed. "The man will probably invite us to a banquet sometime within the next seven days and all the lords of the surrounding lands will come. That is the way of the Meca hierarchy."


End file.
